Killing, Plucking, Eviscerating, & Cutting Up Your Chicken - Graphic!

[n3kms]

I think he killed a squirrel with his gun once. I'll have to try the tuna can test. I would sure feel better doing that, I believe. Thanks for ya'lls help. I am hoping to eventually do meat chickens and I need to be able to handle this. I know my chickens have a good life and healthy food so I see no reason to keep eating store bought just so someone else can do the killing. Plucking wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. Getting all the innards out was tricky but I think with practice I can do it more quickly and easily.

 

[MargaretYakoda]

We used a BB pistol that has a CO2 cartridge a few weeks ago.
We put the muzzle directly behind the rooster's ear and aimed for the eye on the other side. It stunned the bird just fine, but a proper pellet gun would likely do a better job.
Also? We've been referring to it as the "Tony Soprano treatment" as in: He never saw the bullet coming.

Our last slaughter didn't go quite as well, but that's another story.

Not sure if an air soft gun is the same as an airgun aka pellet gun, perhaps your son knows. The pellets come in different shapes. The flat nosed ones I think are better at stunning, not sure if they are meant to penetrate. I used pellets that had a conical point and they definitely worked. Be sure to get the right caliber (size) for your gun.

I figure, with enough practice, I could probably master the neck cut. But I hate practicing on a living creature like that. Some cuts went well and others not so much. There's no practice with a .22 at point blank.

A friend of mind recently butchered a couple sheep. I asked him, how did you kill them and he said, with a .22 to the back of the head. Mind you, he was using a real .22 gun, with gunpowder bullets, which is much more powerful than an airgun. But the airgun was powerful enough to go through a tuna can and that gave me confidence to use it on the chickens.

Edit: Just looked up "airsoft gun" and it doesn't look like it will work. They're replicas of real guns that fire non-lethal pellets. But a real airgun aren't that much more expensive and can kill small animals.

 

[Laurissa]

Thank you for the info, and pictures! I am a 30yr female who's NEVER done this before. I have 2 Roos to put in the freezer. Thanks again for your help

 

[ladyhawk124]

Does the age of a chicken change the quality of the meat? If so what is the best age for processing chickens?

 

[pdirt]

Does the age of a chicken change the quality of the meat? If so what is the best age for processing chickens?

Depends.

Are you raising Cornish Cross aka "meat birds" or dual purpose chickens?

The former is generally 6-8 weeks, the latter 16-20 weeks. For dual purpose birds, they will generally be smaller than meat birds and will be a bit tougher. Smaller but more tender at younger ages. Older than 20 weeks and they'll be fairly tough and you'll want to cook them differently. If you free range them much, they will be tougher because they are running around, exercising their muscles. We get around this by slow cooking for 12 hours in a crock pot. Still tougher than Cornish cross aka grocery store chicken, but so much more flavor.

Cornish cross are fairly bland in flavor but grow very fast. Other breeds grow much slower but tend to have a deeper flavor.

 

[Double Kindness]

Thank you guys! Yesterday I had brought 16 pullets to the chicken swap b/c I have my egg layers but needed to fill my freezer. I traded 16 pullets for 10 roosters, 4 large muscovy ducks and 4 red warty things pumpkins.

We never dressed a bird before, game yes. We had the tablet open and I scrolled and kept it alive while my bf did most of the work on a big mean loud rooster. He dressed out at 7.3 lbs with no giblets.

Next I need to figure out sexing muscovy ducks, b/c 10 scovies is too many to go into winter with, and most of that grass fed cow is gone but we have half a hog in the deep freezer. Later today after caponizing, we're going to maybe go buy another deep freezer for ducks and chickens.

How best to process 5 month old muscovies?

I meant kept the tablet alive not the rooster we processed, I sound mean! I also wish the death had gone quicker and smoother, but we did learn a LOT and know what we want to do differently next time, which might be today, depending on how caponizing goes. At least the chicken vet will be here guiding us through it, so we hope for few fatalities.

 

[LindaB220]

Thank you guys! Yesterday I had brought 16 pullets to the chicken swap b/c I have my egg layers but needed to fill my freezer. I traded 16 pullets for 10 roosters, 4 large muscovy ducks and 4 red warty things pumpkins.

We never dressed a bird before, game yes. We had the tablet open and I scrolled and kept it alive while my bf did most of the work on a big mean loud rooster. He dressed out at 7.3 lbs with no giblets.

Next I need to figure out sexing muscovy ducks, b/c 10 scovies is too many to go into winter with, and most of that grass fed cow is gone but we have half a hog in the deep freezer. Later today after caponizing, we're going to maybe go buy another deep freezer for ducks and chickens.

How best to process 5 month old muscovies?

I meant kept the tablet alive not the rooster we processed, I sound mean! I also wish the death had gone quicker and smoother, but we did learn a LOT and know what we want to do differently next time, which might be today, depending on how caponizing goes. At least the chicken vet will be here guiding us through it, so we hope for few fatalities.

You are so lucky to find a mentor to show you the ropes on site. Good luck. Pictures please

 

[Double Kindness]

No fatalities on Sunday, 1 success, 1 with 1 teste removed, out of 7 attempts. Not bad, not GREAT!

Tonight I'm cutting up that 7.3 lb mean rooster and starting coq au vin to have for dinner tomorrow. We're picking up a big bottle of rex Goliath free range red, mushrooms, shallots, garlic, herbs and low n slow in the dutch oven for 18 hours or so, it was a year old big mean roo.

I start crying when I think of culling my wheaten ameracuna Jeanette, she laid me my first ever egg and I named her after my favorite aunt. But she hadn't laid an egg in 5 months now.. she used to lay 6 eggs out of 7 days. I have begged, pleaded, bribed her to please start laying pretty blue eggs for me again to no avail.

 

[oldrooster]

Quote:
Using a bottle of wine with a picture of a rooster on it to cook a rooster I like it.....

 

[Double Kindness]

I didn't get around to cutting that rooster up until tonight, he's marinade in 1.5 liters of cabernet sauvignon rex Goliath wine in a dutch oven in my fridge until the morning.

I have never seen chicken thigh meat that deep red color before. I'm excited!